Go ahead, feel the pottery

Artist makes her mark with textures

Friday, Nov. 9, 2007

By Susan Craton

 Staff Writer for St. Mary’s County Enterprise Newspaper

  ‘‘It’s very glamorous down here,” she said, laughing and referring to the basement where she sat. ‘‘I’m down here with the kitty litter boxes and the washer and dryer.”

 But down in her basement with her five cats wandering in and out Cochran creates art — the textured platters, casserole dishes and bowls, the brightly glazed mugs and decorative pieces that have become a fixture at local art and craft shows like Artsfest at Annmarie Garden and this weekend’s Unique Boutique at the Hollywood firehouse.

 ‘‘She does beautiful work,” said Tammy Vitale, a sculptor in Lusby who will also participate in the Unique Boutique. ‘‘The texturizing, it’s highly unusual. I haven’t heard of anyone else using [textures] the way she is.”

 Cochran makes primarily functional pottery, as opposed work that is strictly decorative. She uses a slab roller — a large table fitted with a frame and fixed rolling pin that uniformly flattens clay — to make about 60 percent of her work and a potter’s wheel for about 40 percent. Some work is done on an extruder, a tool through which clay is pressed into a shapes.

 But it’s the textures she adds to those pieces that have bumped her up from being a hobbyist to being an artist with her own style. She presses textured wallpaper or leaves or other patterned items into the rolled clay. She stamps designs into the edges of her bowls.

 ‘‘I love texture. So, I try to incorporate that wherever I can,” Cochran said.

 When Cochran sets up a table of her pottery at a show, ‘‘99 percent of the people who come by, they have to feel something,” she said. ‘‘My whole table just screams ‘touch me.’ ”

 She likes that.

 Cochran, 42, works as an administrative assistant in NAVAIR public affairs. ‘‘So, this is kind of part-time gig for me,” she said, as she formed a mug on the wheel.

 She normally listens to music, often Hawaiian slack key guitar music (her father is Hawaiian), as she creates. Otherwise she is alone with her cats.

 It’s very different from when she first learned her craft.

 In 1994, she and her husband, Dan Prasada-Rao, were living in Washington, D.C. A friend talked Cochran into taking a pottery class at the Thomas Jefferson Recreation Center in Arlington, Va. It wasn’t an instant hit with Cochran, but she stuck with it. It was with her second teacher that she connected and she started to get the idea, she said. ‘‘You talk to 10 different potters and they’ll tell you 10 different ways to do the same thing,” Cochran said.

 And after that, ‘‘it was just tons and tons of practice” that took Cochran from a beginner to a professional potter, she said.

 Then, about 10 years ago, Prasada-Rao was transferred from his job in Crystal City, Va., to Patuxent River Naval Air Station and the couple moved to St. Mary’s.

 It was an adjustment for Cochran because she had been used to working in the recreation center’s studio, where the equipment was all there for the potters, the glazes were all supplied and a kiln was on site. It was also a social time for Cochran, where she could visit with other artists while she worked.

 ‘‘I loved living in the city, but I was kind of excited about moving down here. But, when I came down here, I had to learn how to use the kiln, make my own glazes,” she said.

 Not long after that move, however, a large financial gift from her aunt helped in this adjustment. Cochran’s aunt had sold some property for more than she expected and she divided up this bonus among Cochran and her siblings. She insisted that Cochran spend it on ‘‘just anything.”

 Cochran used most of it to buy the slab roller and a kiln that she keeps in her garage. ‘‘I attribute it to my aunt,” she said of the key turning point in her artistic career. ‘‘Right when I got that thing, it changed,” she said, referring to the roller.

 Her work just seemed to click all of a sudden. The roller particularly suited Cochran’s approach and lends itself well to her interest in adding texture to her work. ‘‘It seems to work for me,” she said.

 But Cochran doesn’t want to make pottery full time. ‘‘No ... I think I wouldn’t like it then. I’m not a business person. I just want to create and not do anything else.

 ‘‘My whole goal when I started was to be good enough to make gifts,” she said. ‘‘I’m still amazed that now, so many years later, I can make this stuff.”

 Because she isn’t trying to make a living from the pottery, Cochran keeps her prices low, with her pieces selling from between $6 and $65.

 ‘‘It’s beautiful, and people don’t have to empty their pockets,” she said.

 And while Cochran hasn’t learned to enjoy making her own glazes, ‘‘it’s chemistry,” she said, wrinkling her nose, other artists admire the glazes — a textured green, cobalt blue and white.

 ‘‘Her glazes are amazing,” Vitale said.

 Vitale told Cochran that she liked the cobalt blue glaze in particular. Cochran offered to share the instructions for making it with her.

 ‘‘She’s very generous,” Vitale said. ‘‘She has the kind of openness I love. She’s just a sweetheart of a person.”

 Some proceeds from this weekend’s Unique Boutique will benefit Hospice of St. Mary’s. Cochran appreciates this aspect of the show.

 ‘‘Oh, definitely. All the artists donated pieces. It’s a 100 percent donation.

 ‘‘I’d rather [customers] buy from that table than my own. It’s such a great cause.”

 She also likes the idea of the community having a chance to see so much local artistic talent in one place. ‘‘You’re supporting local artists, which is important,” she said. ‘‘Everyone there is really talented.”

E-mail Susan Craton at scraton@somdnews.com.